Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Another recent purchase, from the hardware store (sad that they have a better range than my local plant shop). I've had this fellow on my wish list for a little while, so I was very pleased to come across one in such an unassuming place!

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Somebody told me this guy was a slow grower. My arse. He is very delicate, and if you so much as breath on him he'll drop a leaf. As a result I have about six individual plants now. The oldest of which are flowering again.

Monday, 21 December 2009

I've had this guy for a few years now. Never had any problems with him. I recently gave a cutting to my mother (admittedly, by the time I gave it to her the 'cutting' was a thriving plant some 20cms across). Every year he seems to put out more flowers. Go the guy!

Thursday, 17 December 2009

He's flowering! This has got to be the most prolific succulent in my collection. I gave a stalk to the next-door neighbour to stick in her garden, and that's flowering now too. I can't wait to see them open.

Monday, 14 December 2009

My mother also has one of these guys, about the same size as mine, and during one of my visits to her garden she pointed out the tiny little buds forming on the tips of each branch. I had a good stare at mine when I got home, and it was doing the same thing!

Saturday, 12 December 2009

I picked this guy up at my local hardware store, and as is usual for hardware stores, it had a very helpful tag on it - "succulent species". Thanks, guys.

He has the basic habit of an Echeveria, but his leaves are sort of 'sticky' and covered in fine hairs. The flower doesn't look much like my other Echeverias. Andromischus, maybe? Anybody have any clues?

Monday, 7 December 2009

They're sleeper agents, these guys. In winter they vanish, and you'd never know they were there. But as soon as the temperature starts ascending, you see a carpet of tiny green curls appear above the soil, and not long after that there's a massive bush where there was only bare soil a few weeks before. Then they get smothered in flowers. Awesome.

Sunday, 6 December 2009

This little fellow was a gift from a friend who's now living in Portland. My last birthday before she and her hubby left for the US, she presented me with four little succulents - she'd passed through some little town on the coast and came across a market selling plants. She thought they were weird enough that I wouldn't have them already. There was this guy, a thing called a 'dancing bones' cactus, a plump little hawarthia and a lovely silver andromischus. I think of her every time I see them.

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Monday, 2 March 2009

These guys have finally started flowering... The top one is "Mini Joy", and the one below is "Autumn Joy", who hasn't quite opened his petals yet. These are fantastic plants - they die off after flowering and you'd think they were annuals, until sometime in Spring when little tight-curled nubules of green appear above the soil.

Saturday, 28 February 2009

In April last year, this was a pair of leaves which had been sitting in a pot forever doing nothing. Now, he's filled out his little bit of garden and is heading for his first metre in height. Needless to say, I love this plant, and shall be propagating him further. This is then:

Sunday, 1 February 2009

Saturday, 24 January 2009

See? Not missing... I've been off-line for a month, not because I've been on holiday or anything interesting like that; I've been waiting for my new camera to arrive. It arrived on Tuesday, and I'm in love. So much so that very little succulent-photography has actually happened yet!

This little guy is a darling compact grower, which hangs nicely off the edges of pots and, in my garden at least, never, ever flowers. This specimen is growing in my mother's garden. She's obviously giving it more love than I give mine...